Sternutation
by etraytin
Summary: Ten years of Donna teasing Josh about sneezes.


Author's Note: This is a prompt fic for Anonymous, who asked quite ardently for "Person A of your OTP who is the big scary one (in this case Josh) has a cute small sneeze. Person B (Donna) finds this hilarious and teases them about it mercilessly." I had a hard time with this one for about a week, but then I spent a chunk of this morning in an MRI tube and distracted myself by plotting this out. Hope you enjoy, Anon. :D

…...

The first time Donna heard it was on the first campaign, during the hay-feverish days of late April. She had her own desk in the New Hampshire HQ, but it was out in the front room with everyone else and Josh didn't like her being out of easy shouting range. She spent a lot of time working across his desk from him or even on the floor next to his desk if space was at a particular premium. She was on the floor one night, arranging a file box to take to Illinois with them, when she heard a tiny, peculiar noise. It was kind of like the sound of a can opening, but also a little bit like a cat meowing, if the two things happened simultaneously.

She climbed to her knees and looked around. Josh was wiping his nose with a handkerchief, but didn't seem otherwise bothered, so maybe he hadn't heard it. "What was that noise?" she asked. He glanced over at her, more like glared, really, but then suddenly his face screwed up, he lifted his handkerchief, and there was that same noise again.

"Oh my god," she exclaimed, "was that you? Is that how you sneeze?"

He gave her a sour look. "I think the expression you're looking for is 'god bless you.'"

She giggled, she couldn't help it. "That's adorable. That's like a tiny kitten sneeze. Do it again."

"How about doing some work instead?" he shot back, wiping his nose. He didn't look to be in a particularly jokey mood, so she went back to her file box, but that didn't stop her from cackling every time he sneezed.

She asked Sam about it once, after the election and when they'd all been drinking, of course. Josh was right there at the table, because it didn't seem sporting to make fun of him when he wasn't there to enjoy it. "Hey Sam, have you ever heard Josh sneeze?"

Sam laughed. "I thought he was faking the first time I heard it. It's a Lilliputian sneeze from a Gulliver-sized man, and it's really quite disconcerting."

"Hey, sitting right here," Josh insisted, waving his mostly-empty beer.

"Of course, we wouldn't talk about you behind your back unless it was really juicy," Donna informed him reasonably. "We're just commenting on your physical idiosyncrasies."

"Oh yeah? Has anybody told you that you have a really grating laugh when you've been drinking?"

"Hey!" she frowned. "I happen to have a beautiful laugh when I've been drinking. Don't I, Sam?" Sam, being no dumb cookie, nodded agreement. She then proceeded to pout Josh into buying the next round of beer, but at least the subject of sneezing was left behind.

The first time they ate curry together was at his house, eight weeks after Josh got home from the hospital. Donna had never had curry before and thought it was terribly spicy, but all right with a large dollop of sour cream. Josh was appalled and called her a Wisconsin Dairy Queen, but then got some pepper up his nose and had a prolonged sneezing fit. Donna was beside herself with laughter. Josh pointed out that sneezing would've been a lot more painful if his sneezes weren't so restrained and economical. She called them "budget-friendly" sneezes for the next two years.

On the second campaign, Donna and Josh both caught cold from being caught in the rain on their cross-country odyssey. They huddled together in misery on Air Force One, this time heading to California, ate soup, and blew their noses. Donna teased him about his sneezing, then fell asleep on his shoulder. When he sneezed, it didn't wake her up.

It was a windy, dry night when Josh touched down in Germany, and after hours on a Lufthansa flight across the ocean, his sinuses couldn't take it anymore. He started sneezing on the steps of the Landstuhl medical center, but nobody said anything about it.

On Election Day 2006, Josh chased Donna up two flights of stairs to his room for some tension relief. As they snuggled together after the first round, sweaty and breathing hard in the aftermath, Donna murmured, "Well, I guess you really can't tell anything about a guy by the size of his sneezes," then shrieked with laughter as he dove for her ribs and tickled her into submission. That quickly led to more cooperative pursuits, and a very satisfactory break from the last day of a very long campaign.

Eighteen months later, Josh sat in front of his computer and studied his nearly-blank word processor page. "Writing our own vows is stupid," he called to Donna in the living room. "We should be writing each other's vows."

"I'm not vowing to obey you, Josh," she called back, sounding preoccupied over her own writing project.

"Yeah, I figured that was a lost cause. What about coffee?"

"You wouldn't know what to do if I brought you a cup of coffee. You'd freak out."

He frowned, realizing she was probably right. "Oh, I know. No more teasing me about the damn sneezing thing!"

There was a pause. "You really don't want me to joke about that anymore?" She walked into the den and leaned on the doorframe.

"It's embarrassing!" he protested.

"It's cute," she countered. "I like your teeny sneezes."

Josh groaned. "It's unmanly."

"It's not!" Donna came all the way into the room and plopped down in his lap like she owned the place. "It's just you." She studied his face for a minute. "How about only in private?" she suggested.

"Yeah, okay, fine," he agreed, finding it a little difficult to argue with her when she was sitting in his lap.

"I'll have to tell Sam, though," she continued thoughtfully. "He has a whole bit worked out for the best man speech already." She grinned, and it was not a comforting grin. "I'll just tell him to concentrate on how you snore instead."

"Hey!"


End file.
